“So be it,” she said quietly. “Come with me.”

Chapter

Thirty-three

I walked into the ancient forest with Mother Summer on my arm, following a wide, meandering footpath.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question while we walk?” Mother Summer asked.

“Not at all, ma’am,” I said.

“What do you suppose will happen to you if you do not heed Mab’s command?”

“Command?” I asked.

“Don’t be coy, child,” Mother Summer sniffed. “What my counterpart knows, I know. Mab commanded you to slay Maeve. What do you think will happen if you disobey her?”

I walked for a while before I answered, “It depends whether or not Mab’s still around when the smoke clears, I guess,” I said. “If she is . . . she’ll be upset. I’ll wind up like Lloyd Slate. If she isn’t . . .”

“Yes?”

“Maeve assumes Mab’s mantle and becomes the new Winter Queen.”

“Exactly,” Mother Summer said. “In time, the difference will hardly show. But in the immediate future . . . how do you think Maeve will treat you?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. I could imagine that vividly enough—Maeve, high as a kite on her newfound power, giggling and tormenting and killing left and right just because she could do it. Maeve was the sort who lived to pull the wings off of flies.

And I was pretty sure whose wings would be the first to catch her eye.

“Well, crap,” I said.

“Quite so,” said Mother Summer. “And if you do heed Mab’s command?”

“Maeve’s mantle gets passed on to someone else,” I said. “And if . . . the adversary? Can I say that safely?”

Mother Summer smiled. “That’s why we use that word rather than a name, Sir Knight. Yes.”

“If the adversary has taken Mab,” I said, “then it gets to choose an agent to take the Winter Lady’s mantle. Two-thirds of the Winter Court will be under its influence.” I looked back toward the cottage. “And that seems like it might be bad for Mother Winter.”

“Indeed,” said Mother Summer. “We are all vulnerable to those who are close to us.”

“I never figured Granny Cleaver was close to anyone, ma’am.”

The lines at the corners of Mother Summer’s eyes deepened. “Oh, she . . . What is the phrase? She talks a good game. But in her own way, she cares.”

I may have arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Kind of like how, in her own way, she likes me?” I asked.

Mother Summer didn’t answer that, as our steps carried us into a more deeply shadowed section of the forest. “It is at times very difficult to be so closely interwoven with mortals,” she said.

“For you?”

“For all of Faerie,” she replied.

“What do you mean?”

She gestured at herself. “We appear much as humans, do we not? Most of our folk do—or else they resemble another creature of the mortal world. Hounds, birds, stags, and so forth.”

“Sure,” I said.

“You are endlessly fascinating. We conceive our children with mortals. We move and sway in time to the mortal seasons. We dance to mortal music, make our homes like mortal dwellings, feast upon mortal foods. We find parts of ourselves becoming more like them, and yet we are not like them. Many of the things they think and feel, and a great many of their actions, are inexplicable to us.”

“We don’t really understand ourselves all that well yet,” I said. “I think it would be very difficult for you to do it.”

Mother Summer smiled at me, and it felt like the first warm day of spring. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

“But you’ve got a point to make, ma’am,” I said. “Or you wouldn’t have brought up the subject.”

“I do,” she said. “Winter is cold, Sir Knight, but never so cold that it freezes the heart altogether.”

“You’ve got to have a heart before it can freeze, ma’am.”

“You do.”

I walked for a little while, considering that. “You’re saying that I have a chance to stay me.”

“I’m saying many things,” Mother Summer said. “Do you have a chance to remain yourself despite the tendency of the mantle to mold your thoughts and desires? All Knights, Winter and Summer, have that chance. Most fail.”

“But it’s possible,” I said.

She looked up at me and her eyes were deeper than time. “Anything is possible.”

“Ah,” I said, understanding. “We’re not really talking about me.”

“We are,” she said serenely, turning her eyes away. “And we are not.”

“Uh,” I said. “I’m getting a little confused here. What are we talking about, exactly?”

Mother Summer smiled at me.

And then she just clammed up.

We are? We’re not?

I kept a straight face while my inner Neanderthal spluttered and then went on a mental rampage through a hypothetical produce section, knocking over shelves and splattering fruit everywhere in sheer frustration, screaming, “JUST TELL ME WHOSE SKULL TO CRACK WITH MY CLUB, DAMMIT!”

Flippin’ faeries. They will be the death of me.

“In the spirit of balanced scales,” I said, “would it be all right if I asked you a question, ma’am?”

“I welcome the question. I make no promises as to the answer.”

I nodded. “Who are you, really?”

Mother Summer stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me. Her eyebrows slowly lifted. “That is a very significant question.”

“I know,” I said. “Blame it on Halloween.”

“Why should I do that?”

I shrugged, and we began walking again. “It’s just got me thinking: masks. I know of one figure from ancient tales who is alive and well and incognito. Why shouldn’t there be more?”

Mother Summer inclined her head, more a gesture of acknowledgment or admission than agreement. “Things change,” she said. “Immortals deal poorly with change. But it comes to everyone.”

“I called Mother Winter by the names Athropos and Skuld because they seemed to fit her,” I said. “I mean, she likes her sharp implements, apparently.”

Mother Summer’s smile appeared for a moment, dazzling me, and then was gone again. “It was not an imbecilic guess,” she said. “And, yes, she has been known by such names before. But you’ve only guessed the name of one of her masks—not our most powerful name.”

“Our?” I said. “Wait. I’m confused.”

“I know,” she said. “Here we are.”

We stopped in the middle of a forest path that didn’t look any different from anything around it. Mother Summer stopped and frowned at me. “You really aren’t dressed for the climate.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I can handle cold.”

She let go of my arm, looked me up and down, then put a hand on the handle of the basket she carried over one arm and said, “Something a little less . . . informal would be appropriate, I think.”